In 2241 the dominant superpower on Earth, the USAN, successfully concludes the fourth world war. The nation breathes a sigh of relief, and looks forward to the resumption of elections.
Across the solar system, the leading industrialist in the USAN’s small colony on Mars is thinking about independence. When the Martian population votes in favour, Mars secedes from the union.
It seems to be a fait accompli until it’s suggested that a massive dropship carrying spacecraft, Ephialtes, built to patrol the Earth, could be refitted for interplanetary spaceflight. Maybe the USAN could use its military might to persuade the colonists to reconsider.
With an enormous instrument war of heading toward them, the Martians resolve to defend their independence. Limited resources force them to rely on wit and ingenuity as they prepare their defences. Can they prevail against the mighty Ephialtes?
Political intrigue, heart-pounding action and page-turning drama abound in this gripping opening to the Ephialtes Trilogy.
I really enjoyed this, I bought it on a whim as I don't buy much science fiction but this one took my fancy as I liked the mysterious cover. I then read a good review that tempted me further by describing the epilogue as a doozy, and that's my favourite type of epilogue.
The story is very in depth - I like a book that keeps me concentrating, and this one did that but also kept me guessing right to the end. Part thriller, part political warfare, part romance, part space adventure, Ephialtes has it all but not in an obvious way. The storytelling kept me gripped - I like short chapters that are broken up into readable segments, so I can read while on my lunch break and say to myself 'just one more bit before I go back to work'.
I was also impressed at the strength of the many female characters - I get tired of the many stories about heroic and powerful men, but here the leading roles are shared nicely between male and female characters.
All in all, a great book - I'm looking forward to part two!
Good book, wanted to care more about the characters but found that hard to do... Very much liked the end, so many questions thoh.. looking forward to the next one.
While this was a very good science fiction book, I can’t stand the name or title nor some of the names of the characters in the book. Why can’t authors use names that are pronounceable by most English language readers? I struggled with how to pronounce the title, “Ephialtes” and had to look it up several times before it stuck in my head. Now, I know I’m not the brightest book reader, but that is certainly a strange name for anything. Additionally, the last name for one of the main characters is “Karjalianen”. How do you pronounce that? Then there’s a couple of prominent companies, “Hjälp Tenknik” and “Venkdt Corporation”, which I can’t pronounce either. And who names their daughter, “Askel”? So, for the author, please come up with some names that make sense to English speaking readers, please. (I know it’s already too late, but I needed to vent!)
So, what’s the book about. Well, it’s about Mars wanting it’s independence from Earth. Now that Mars has become self-sufficient, it no longer feels the need to be governed by Earth and specifically the USAN (United States and Nations). Mars, led by the CEO of the largest Martian corporation, Venkdt Corporation, decide to hold a general election and see if the people of Mars truly want to be independent. The vote turns out to be overwhelmingly, “Yes”, so Mars, through the Venkdt Corp. begins severing all normal ties with USAN.
One of the major hurtles will be buying the stock from the parent Venkdt Corp. on Earth by the Martians. The problem is the USAN and the parent Venkdt Corp. don’t want an independent Mars nor do they want to sell their holdings on Mars. Mars is the largest supplier of deuterium for the USAN which uses that supply to heat peoples homes, drive their cars, and just about anything related to energy.
USAN decides that Mars will not be allowed to go independent. Now how they come to that decision is kind of dumb given that USAN has no deep space capability and it currently takes USAN almost two years to go back and forth to Mars when the two planets orbits are reasonable. Still, the President of USAN insist that Mars can’t just claim independence and be done with it. He has two massive spaceships orbiting Earth that are not deep space vehicles until he tells the Sec Def. to make them so, and send them to Mars. From there all sorts of idiotic things start to happen. It’s interesting reading, but highly improbable. I even question that Mars can be really independent from Earth since their entire population has just reached 100,000. That’s barely enough to sustain any kind of colony, much less run a planet and gather resources you now have to sell to someone so far, far away.
The writing was good although you could kind of see what was going to happen before it did in quite a few places. And, there are some very, very smart people on Mars and a lot of very dumb people running Earth. I don’t see how the dumb people of Earth are going to come out of this series of books very well.
One more thing that’s kind of disturbing. The author states that this is a trilogy with the first book released in September of 2015. The second book won’t be out until sometime in 2017. That’s a long time to keep an audience interested in your story. Maybe too long?
Title: Ephialtes Author: Gavin E. Parker Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing ISBN: 151513573X Buy Link: http://ephialtestrilogy.com/ Reviewer: Teresa – Fallen Angel Blurb: In 2241 the dominant superpower on Earth, the USAN, successfully concludes the fourth world war. The nation breathes a sigh of relief and looks forward to the resumption of elections.
Across the solar system the leading industrialist in the USAN’s small colony on Mars is thinking about independence. When the Martian population votes in favour Mars secedes from the union.
It seems to be a fait accompli until it’s suggested that a massive dropship carrying spacecraft, Ephialtes, built to patrol the Earth, could be refitted for interplanetary spaceflight. Maybe the USAN could use its military might to persuade the colonists to reconsider.
With an enormous instrument war of heading toward them the Martians resolve to defend their independence. Limited resources force them to rely on wit and ingenuity as they prepare their defences. Can they prevail against the mighty Ephialtes?
Political intrigue, heart-pounding action and page-turning drama abound in this gripping opening to the Ephialtes Trilogy
Summary:
From the beginning, this story was wove adventure, conflict into a sci-fi story that brought the wonder and adventure of building a new world to the reader. It found it interesting that when the colony on Mars voted for their freedom the USAN, originally the USA, refused to accept their decision. The USA fought for their own freedom in the same manner, but they didn't see it that way. The story allowed the reader to see the situation form both sides as the conflict heated up as the struggle escalated. The Martians wanted only their right to choose their own path while the leaders on Earth saw only the loss of revenue and power. The ingenuity of the people on Mars was a credit to their original home world even though the Earth leaders never saw it that way. When you add a perilous interstellar voyage with intricate relationships between many of the characters between and on both worlds, you have character who not only came to life, but held the reader spellbound as the story unfolded. The fight took a direction I never expected and held me spellbound until the very end. I will be waiting impatiently for the next book in the Ephialtes Trilogy.
Kindle Unlimited {but was freebie day, not sure about the ku}
The Ephialtes Trilogy chronicles the conflict between Earth and Mars, triggered by Mars' secession from the USAN in the aftermath of World War IV. The stories of The Ephialtes Shorts Collection make up the connective tissue between books one and two of the trilogy. The collection comprises all four previously released shorts together with the exclusive Ephialtes Short V: Why Am I So Clever?
n 2241 the dominant superpower on Earth, the USAN, successfully concludes the fourth world war. The nation breathes a sigh of relief and looks forward to the resumption of elections.Across the solar system the leading industrialist in the USAN’s small colony on Mars is thinking about independence. When the Martian population votes in favour Mars secedes from the union.It seems to be a fait accompli until it’s suggested that a massive dropship carrying spacecraft, Ephialtes, built to patrol the Earth, could be refitted for interplanetary spaceflight. Maybe the USAN could use its military might to persuade the colonists to reconsider.With an enormous instrument war of heading toward them the Martians resolve to defend their independence. Limited resources force them to rely on wit and ingenuity as they prepare their defences. Can they prevail against the mighty Ephialtes? Political intrigue, heart-pounding action and page-turning drama abound in this gripping opening to the Ephialtes Trilogy.
Ephialtes (Ephialtes Trilogy Book 1) The Ephialtes Shorts look back to the first book of the trilogy and forward to the second, Book two of the Ephialtes Trilogy will be released autumn 2017.
I received this book for free through Voracious Readers Only.
In a future where the US (now called USAN) has just won world war IV, taken over most of planet Earth, and is ruled by a warmongering power-hungry dictator, the small colony on Mars is starting to think of independence.
The Martians know that declaring their independence may start a diplomatic conflict, but they didn't anticipate it escalating into an interplanetary war, as the president orders the warship Ephialtes to attack the colony instead of starting negotiations.
It's the classic story of underdog against big bully.
The worldbuilding is extensive, perhaps a bit too much so, as important information is bunched in with the trivial. The pacing is very slow. And while there is a lot of political intrigue, a lot of it seemed so contrived that I had a hard time taking it seriously. Not bad, but not great either.
Reasonably good military sci-fi. I love some of the technological concepts, and the characters are well-defined. However, some of the political scenarios are just plain unrealistic and contrived. We don't really see Mars, as such, in the sense of the unique characteristics of the planet that make it a challenging place to live. It could have been almost any generic planet. I won't say more without revealing spoilers. Suffice to say, while this is certainly hard sci-fi, and well-written, it's actually not a very realistic plot, and in places can be boring.
Set a couple hundred years into the future, Earth’s major powers have just signed the peace treaties ending World War IV. The colony on Mars decides this is the best time for them to declare independence. The leaders on Mars and the leaders of their colonial masters, the USAN, both think Mars is too far away for anyone to do anything about it. They’re all wrong, of course...
This is the beginning premise for Parker’s sci-fi military/political thriller. It’s an interesting tale where none of the outcomes are certain, though it really lacks an element of surprise.
My quibbles are the same as for any story: character development, relevant story elements, and plot. The plot is okay, but the characters are not as the dimensional as I would have liked. The author could have dropped a few of them, spending the word count saved on putting more flesh on the high level protagonists and had a better story.
Some elements of the story are totally irrelevant and seem to serve only as vehicles to share what the characters are thinking. The author gets some of the science right (the astrophysics in particular), but does not explain some of the futuristic science to any degree. This comes off as fact by fiat to me. Fortunately little of the story is impacted by this oversight.
The action - for a military story - is not well paced. It is clumpy and doesn’t really hold the reader’s interest as well as it could. In another genre the pacing would be okay, but here it just isn’t.
I give “Ephialtes” three stars. It is middle of the road reading. It won’t put you off, but it isn’t compelling either.
The opinions shared in this review are my own. I have received no compensation in exchange for offering them.
A nice read. Not something really ground breaking but a very nice read all the same. Final rating 3.5 aka "worth your time and money".
PROS
1) Nice world-building in terms of economical/social power dynamics. 2) The tech is consistent. No visible beams or light-sabers present XD. 3) The actions of the main actors are consistent with their character. 4) The story flows properly. It might be a series of cut-scenes from one character to the next but you never have to guess where you are or who is talking. 5) loved the ending. Nice hook Mr Parker ;) . Now i really want to get the next book.
CONS
1) There are no great locales described in this book. Even the spaceships are not described. One way to avoid inconsistencies is to gloss over stuff like these and let the readers imagination fill in the blanks....but it didn't work here. This is a major flaw. If this was meant to be a scifi book then unfortunately it's a very soft scifi. 2) There is no description of the way the average Joe lives or thinks (and i mean both in the supposedly democratic USAN and the supposedly democratic Marian nation). 3) There is almost no mention to any country outside the USAN. Even the EWIL Asian block is not depicted in any way. We just know they are the cartoonish bad guys. 4) There are really no main/well fleshed characters you can love and get attached to.
This is surely a nice first try and i look forward to see what happens next.No.... i HAVE to see what comes next.
p.s I did not get a free copy of the book for this review... and it is weird nobody else seems to have received one as well. Just weird
After Mars secedes from the USAN on Earth that nation launches the first interplanetary war to "get our planet back." The Martians prepare to defend themselves and the steps they take are intriguing.
There are loads of good characters in this book and they are developed nicely. I thought the dialogue was well done and the plot was fascinating. The action sequences were compelling. Kudos for this author delivering a complete story--unlike so many series books that end with no resolution. The editing was excellent, save for one slight flaw. That being too much time was spent on politics. I think that part of the book could have been cut in half with no loss.
All told, this was an excellent read and I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the series.
I had really high hopes for this book after the first few chapters, but then it all kind of fell apart for me. It felt like there were too many characters, and most of them were introduced in such a way that they were instantly forgettable... so when a name popped up I had to ask myself "Is this a new character, or have I met them before?" then read on to find out - which is a pain. There's also too much information thrown at you too quickly and there wasn't really the desire to absorb it all. The writing is good, the story's okay... It just wasn't the book for me.
I received a free copy of this book from the author and I am offering an honest, though subjective, review.
In a word... I enjoyed the story. It started out rather slowly but never lost my interest. Anticipation continued to build throughout as more characters and situations appeared, as the plot and sub-plots developed, and sticky scenarios became more entangled. At times I couldn't read fast enough wondering what was going to happen next. Some of the plot twists were guessed at correctly, some weren't, which made for a pleasant read. And that's the point. I read to be entertained and Parker accomplished that well.
For Book One of a series I felt the character development was adequately done. Only so much world-building and character development can be brought out in an opening book while allowing for the all important story-line, but Parker did quite well. Future books can embellish and add to the epic stature of a science fiction series while bringing out more back-story on people, places, and events. The editing was well done with few mistakes. The author being British used phrases unfamiliar to my ears but that only added to the enjoyment.
This is a good first book. Parker's style of writing reminds me of Asimov's "Foundation Series" in that politics, story-line, and character development take precedent over technical description and non-stop action scenes. Granted, Asimov is a lofty standard to reach for, but Parker makes a good showing with "Ephialtes". I look forward to the next installments.
An excellent book that now has me very eager to read more in this Universe. Ephialtes is set a few hundred years in the future and centers on the colony of Mars declaring their independence. While the people of Mars seem to be the protagonists, the characters are all very well developed and make it difficult to take sides. There also seems to be some interesting commentary on the approach that governments take about wars. I'm definitely eager to read the followup, due out some time in 2017!
(note: I got this book from Smashwords for free and posted the same review there. If you read it and like it, please do the same. Reviews can make or break independent authors)
Great book. First time for me for this type of book. Won't be the last. Enjoyed the characters. Fast moving. Scary to think that this might be the future. Received this book in exchange for an honest review. Jackie